SamizdatMath

Think about it: the average American eats over 40 slices of pizza a year; if you live to be 80, and assuming you start at around 5 years old, this is 75 years of pizza x 40 slices per year, or 3,000 slices in your lifetime! Since this delicious food is such an important part of our life, doesn't it make sense that we understand everything there is about the economics of buying pizza? This is a series of activities that examines the economics of pizza in several different ways. First, it shows

Greetings, Phrens! This is an activity that takes 1 - 2 class sessions and teaches your young students (grades 2 - 5) something that is less scary than human reproduction or racial discrimination: negative numbers! Seriously, if you aren't introducing your students to negative numbers at an early age, then you're not doing the best job you could at being a math teacher, and I'm not saying that to hurt your feelings, but because I want you to look good (and, as my hero, Vidal Sassoon said ove

Here's the deal: you want your students to practice rounding off numbers so you give them one of these rando "worksheets" with lots of numbers saying "round off to the nearest ten," "round off to the nearest hundred," yadda yadda yadda and they do it and forget about it and it's just a superficial way to approach this important topic. This takes the whole topic and reverses it, making it far more interesting and useful: each booklet starts by asking "When rounded off to the nearest thousand, it

Okay, you covered “odd” and “even” number with your students and they now know that all even numbers have a 0, 2, 4, 6 or 8 in the ones place (they don’t “end” with those digits, because numbers don’t have a “beginning” or “end,” they have “places”) and are odd if they have the digits 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9 in the ones place. All good! But let’s ramp this up a bit: your students now know one of the basic concepts of mathematics, better known as “parity,” which gives them an opportunity to conduct an i

Greetings teacher phrens, Here's the activity you've been waiting for if you want your students to become more flexible and fluent with non-routine number facts and combinations using MENTAL MATH STRATEGIES; Schools o' Fish challenges students to take 15 different numbers and arrange them in groups so that they add up to the same number (at least, in this version.) Features: • EZ Cut n' Paste Technology: the pieces have been arranged in such a way that your students can cut out all 15 in abo

"On a bad day, I have no ideas. On a good day, I have a lot of wrong ideas. At least with wrong ideas, I can mix them together and come up with a right answer." That's the idea behind this number puzzle, which I've intentionally designed to be really tricky and frustrating (at least, it was for the 3rd through 6th graders I tried it on.) The relationship between the three columns appear to be arbitrary, but there actually is some method to the madness: the students should be encouraged to come

Here’s a set of puzzles that will promote the use of “backwards thinking.” That is, the technique is to look at where you want to “end” and then work backwards step by step in order to get to the beginning. Some people refer to this as “guess and check,” but that is incorrect: that technique involves putting in possible solutions and then starting from the beginning to see if the solution is correct. Eh, no, that’s not quite the way it works.In working backwards, you get to the beginning by work

This is a second set of 10 3-D spatial problem solving puzzles that use 2 - 3 of the seven Soma pieces. There are three different kinds of puzzles: Basic Puzzles: These are puzzles which show the solution to the puzzle in three different colors. Students have to locate the proper pieces and assemble them as shown in the diagram. Intermediate Puzzles: These are puzzles where the solver is told which 2 - 3 pieces to use, but not how they fit together. Students locate the individual pieces and th

This is a set of activities designed to introduce students to a technique for finding the number of paths on a matrix from corner to another. In the beginning problems, students are permitted to use any technique they like, including the "brute force" method of tracing each and every path. Fortunately, for the first couple of problems, this is too confusing, but as the grid gets larger and larger, there are more and more paths to trace, which can get very confusing. From here, a new technique i

This is a set of 2 activity sheets that use a minimum amount of text so that students can engage in solving word problems without the obstacle of decoding dull sentences. The problems are tricky not because of the wording, but because a) there is "interleaving," which means that depending on the problem, the student may have to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. In addition, some of the division problems have remainders that have to be interpreted. There are 4 problems p

This is a collection of 10 different algebra puzzles that use 3 different variables which are represented as rectangles, triangles and hexagons. Yes, we know that "adult" algebra uses X, Y and Z, but since this is designed to be appealing for our younger students (and because abstraction is still tough for them) I've used these geometric shapes instead. I've also limited the kinds of numbers students use by focusing on using 0 - 9 digit cards. This is so your students will not get frustrated wh

Note: There is now a video tutorial that goes with this activity: Division With Remainders: Just Do It (RIGHT!) Your students are "learning" about division, and if you're using a really, really cruddy curriculum, then they probably all sound like this: "I have 24 blah blah blahs which I'm packing into cases of (choose some divisor of 24.) How many cases will I be able to make. This, my friends, is a lackadaisical and churlish approach to teaching students about solving problems with division.

Here's the deal: you want your students to practice addition and subtraction, and you'd like to do more than give them another cruddy worksheet, and you want EVERYONE to be challenged! You also want to be able to customize the activities so that each student gets the appropriate support and challenge, but you don't want to print ten different worksheets! Here's what I came up with: give students problems where they have to add AND subtract in the same problem. Example: What are 2 numbers that

This activity came about because my students are endlessly interchanging the words “factors,” “multiples,” and “divisors.” Instead of just having them copy the definitions out of some dumb book, I thought it would be better to have them actually use the different terms to solve mystery number problems. So I adapted another set of activities that I developed for my younger students and came up with this! But I have another item on my agenda: one of the things I have always advocated is giving c

As you know, one of the things I have always advocated is giving children math problems that are interesting and challenging. I know, I know, this flies directly in the face of “well, if we give them hard things to do, then they’ll get discouraged and think math is hard.” Well, the truth is this: math is hard! And let me say another thing: anybody, young or old, experienced or not, is either lying or has never done “real math” if they think it is “easy.” In this activity, I’m pushing you to cha

As you know, one of the things I have always advocated is giving children math problems that are interesting and challenging. I know, I know, this flies directly in the face of “well, if we give them hard things to do, then they’ll get discouraged and think math is hard.” Well, the truth is this: math is hard! And let me say another thing: anybody, young or old, experienced or not, is either lying or has never done “real math” if they think it is “easy.” In this activity, I’m pushing you to cha

Greetings 3-D fans: this is a second edition of puzzles designed to be used with Snap Cubes or Multi-Link Cubes (NOT Unifix Cubes, unless you purchase a separate zero-gravity diode, which is currently out of stock....) We live in an era where children spend the majority of their time at home or in school looking at a screen: they swipe, tap and click their way through lessons or activities, and what do they get out of it? Bubkus! These are puzzles designed to develop and improve your students

This is a nice little activity that I used with my 3rd graders, but would also be good for 2nd and 4th graders: Students cut out quarter inch calibrated rulers and then use it to measure the length and height of a variety of staplers, old and new, and then draw boxes that will hold the stapler. This comes with some very nice quarter inch rulers that you can print out, laminate and distribute to your students. Fun, cheap and really good to teach your kids about measuring in quarter inch incremen

You want to have your kids practice addition and subtraction problems, with and without re-grouping, but you’re sick of the contrived “word problems” in your textbook, or find the usual activites like “Scoot” dull and repetitive. So here’s something new: addition and subtraction puzzles that are creative, open-ended and, dare I say it, “challenging!” “One, Some or None?” is a game I learned from my graduate school professor, David Fuys, who learned it from another teacher, who invented it to g

This is a collection of classic and soon-to-be classic math and strategy games that can be played by students in grades 1 - 3. Each one has been beautifully layer out with gorgeous typography and NO CUTESY DRAWINGS! This is serious math for serious kids. Not really, but there’s a lot of playful stuff here that will challenge and entertain. Included in this collection: The Golden Apple Game The Rotten Apple Game Westbury: A strategy game where you make numbers from toothpicks. Sumo: A game w